


All This And Heaven Too

by Lothiriel84



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Eventual Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21574027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lothiriel84/pseuds/Lothiriel84
Summary: And the words are all escaping meAnd coming back all damagedAnd I would put them back in poetryIf I only knew how, I can't seem to understand it
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	All This And Heaven Too

He says it first – six thousand years, that’s how long he’s been praying for Crowley not to say it out loud, and now that it’s safe for him to do so, it just doesn’t seem to occur him to.

He says it, and Crowley smiles at him – warm, fond, and unambiguously _wistful_ , of all things. “Course you do,” he nods, and helps himself to another glass of wine. Two hours and plenty of bottles later, he’s standing helplessly on the pavement in front of his bookshop, watching as Crowley gets into his car and drives off; and not for the first time in his long existence, he wonders if he’s been doing it all wrong, again.

They’re having a picnic at the bottom of the cliffs at Birling Gap, in the South Downs, when he says it again. Crowley’s eyes are trained on the horizon, his smile ever so slightly frayed around the edges this time. “You’re an angel, that’s what you do,” he states, matter-of-factly, throwing his half-eaten apple in the general direction of the seagull lurking at their feet. “Comes with the job description, and all that.”

The seagull snatches the apple, struggles a little to keep hold of it with its beak. Aziraphale thinks of the first humans venturing out of Eden and into the unknown, with nothing but the aid of his flaming sword, and wonders if they ever felt as inadequate as he does right now.

Next time he says it, they’ve only just finished moving to their new cottage in the outskirts of Peacehaven, East Sussex. (Aziraphale still can’t quite decide whether that’s an oddly apt name for their shared retirement spot, such as it is, or something more along the lines of cruel irony.)

“I wish you would stop saying that,” Crowley shakes his head, somewhat tiredly, running the tap to fill the kettle that’s been sitting unused in his flat for nigh on three decades. “Teacups are in that box, I believe,” he adds, almost as an afterthought, and Aziraphale won’t break down and make a scene right there on the doorstep of their newly decorated living room, but it’s a near thing.

They’re out stargazing on top of the cliffs at Beachy Head, the few inches separating them a wider distance than the light years of empty space stretching out in between stars and galaxies.

“I always thought you’d say it first,” he whispers, halfway between defeated and quietly resigned; somehow, it’s like they’re standing at the End of the World all over again, only it’s the other way round between them this time, and he supposes he’s had it coming all along.

_Listen to yourself. (Don’t make me say it.) I don’t even like you. (I do.)_

“I did,” Crowley sighs, his voice so soft he can barely hear it. “As good as.”

He closes his eyes, a single tear running down his cheek. “I’m sorry.”

“We’re good, Angel.”

And he wants to believe it, he really does, but this feels like the closest thing to an outright lie Crowley has ever told him, ever since the Beginning.

The bookshop is sitting all around him like the empty shell of its former self. Again, he tries not to think of the twisted irony of it all.

It’s better this way, he reminds himself, and quite firmly at that. There’s only a finite number of times you can let down a fellow entity before they give up on you, doesn’t matter how selfless your intentions. (Not always entirely selfless, but most of the time, at any rate.)

He’s still got his books, so there’s that. He selects one from the nearest shelf, reaches to switch on his reading lamp, only to remember there hasn’t been any electricity in his bookshop for almost a year. He could miracle it, of course, but somehow, it doesn’t feel right, not anymore.

Candle it is, then. There’s a box of matches buried at the back of his desk drawer, and he strikes one, lighting the candle in one fluid move.

(Crowley wouldn’t want him to use candles, not after the bookshop burned down. Still, Crowley’s not here, and Aziraphale finds himself staring with sudden fascination at the burning match, flame licking the tip of his thumb and forefinger before flickering out.)

He strikes another match, book lying forgotten as the light of the candle slowly dies out.

“I’m going to ask exactly once, Angel, and it’d better be good,” Crowley all but growls, hands still fisted in the lapels of his jacket, and he supposes he should feel mortified, or show some contrition, at the very least. “What, in Somebody’s name, did you think you were doing?”

“I – believe I wasn’t, I’m afraid. Thinking, that is.” He never wants to see Crowley this livid – and utterly, thoroughly wrecked behind his facade of righteous fury – knowing that he’s the one who caused it in the first place.

“Right.” Crowley lets go of him, takes a step back for good measure. “If this is about the fight we had three days ago,” he goes on, or attempts to, because Aziraphale’s hands are clutching at the front of his jacket – and he’s never kissed anyone before, not in the way he’s kissing Crowley now, all clumsy and hungry and _alive_ , but in many ways, it doesn’t matter.

“I won’t say it again if you don’t want me to,” he breathes between their lips, Crowley’s eyes wide with something akin to terror, yet quite different at the same time. His sunglasses lie on the floor, where Crowley threw them as he materialised into the bookshop and smacked the smouldering match from Aziraphale’s fingers; he picks them up, presents them to their rightful owner as a peace offering of sorts. “But I don’t have a job, not anymore, and it’s never been about being an angel in the first place.”

Crowley swallows, makes to put on his glasses, then seems to think better of it. “Come home, Angel?”

They do.


End file.
